A mother's love
by Hatchspeut
Summary: Why Río's mom decided to make that second video.


DISCLAIMER: I do not own Money Heist / La Casa de Papel

AUTHOR: Okay, so I've just finished watching the first two seasons of La Casa de Papel on Netflix, and may I just say – I love this show! The Spanish knows how to make great tv-series. This is the third show I see; I think. I love the Tokyo/Río and Denver/Moníca paring. They're just too sweet. Not a fan of the Professor/Inspector, but hey – a lot of you guys out there are so they got their fanbase covered without me. Anyway, I felt I needed to write something about this show and since Río is my favourite character – he is just too cute - the choice was easy. This is a little something-something I came up with after watching Río's reaction to his parents' videos. In the end, we all just want to be loved.

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**A mother's love**

_Some say, he did it for the money. Some say, he did it for the thrill. But I know my son, it may have begun for both of those reasons, but in the end, he finished it for love. _

I look at the pictures laid out before me. It's all too surreal. The pictures show my son - my beautiful son - Aníbal. He looks like the any other teenager his age. T-shirt, baggy jeans, sneakers and bag pack. His curly hair and big eyes make him look so innocent, an angel of sorts. That's why it is so difficult to comprehend what the Inspector at the other side of the table is telling me.

"Your son, Mr and Mrs Cortés, is one of the robbers."

No, no, no! It cannot be so. I hear my husband say something but I cannot make out the words. He is angry. He is always angry these days. Ever since our son's first arrest he has been nothing but angry. He blames himself for what our son did. I know, I blame myself too. Our sweet little boy, hacking security systems when we thought he was playing computer games. Oh, Aníbal, what did we do wrong?

I look at the picture again. The Inspector told us it was taken by a surveillance camera inside the Royal Mint just a few weeks ago. My son has just passed the security check. He has a woman on his arm, a young girl it seems but the Inspector has told us the girl is in fact a woman in her thirties.

Silene Oliveira. Bank robber. Wanted. Dangerous.

I pick up the picture from the table to study it closer. Aníbal looks happy, at ease. He looks affectionate at the woman. He is in love, I realise. Our sweet little Aníbal is in love. He who was too shy to speak to the girls in his class, he who spent hours and hours in front of the computer. He's in love - with a bank robber. He _is_ a bank robber.

The Inspector, Raquel Murillo, is looking at me. Has she spoken to me?

"Mrs Cortés, I know this is difficult to process but we have evidence of your son being one of the robbers. And we need your help to reach out to him, to convince him to help us. Will you do that?"

I look at the picture in my hand and back at the Inspector.

"Our son isn't in it for the money," I tell her, "nor for the thrill. He is in it for love." I show her the picture of my son and Silene Oliviera. "He just wants to be loved."

Raquel Murillo looks at me with sad eyes. She knows, she is a mother too. She reaches out to me, takes my hand in hers and squeeze it gently.

"From what your husband has told me about your son, Aníbal doesn't strike me as a bad person, just lost boy. I am sure that if his parents, his mother in particular, reaches out to him, he will come back to right side of the tracks."

I shake my head, tears beginning to water my eyes.

"He just wants to be loved."

I can't hold back the tears when I think of all the times that I've held my son in my arms as a child. He was a sensitive little boy right from the start, too bright for his own good. I remember all the times I have wiped tears off his cheeks when he had scraped a knee while climbing a tree or fleeing his bullies. I remember all the times he sat in my lap listening to bedtime stories. But most of all, I remember all the times he smiled because I told him I loved him. His beautiful smile . . .

I take one last look at the picture. My son is smiling at the woman, the bank robber. Whomever she is, she is making my son smile, but . . .

"You said her previous boyfriend died at a robbery?"

Inspector Raquel Murillo nods.

"Yes, her boyfriend died at the scene of the robbery. She got away."

I think I hear my heart crack as I picture my own sweet son with a bullet in his head while_ that_ woman sneaks out through the backdoor. Rage fills me.

"What do you want us to do?" I ask.

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AUTHOR: Leave a comment below to let me know what you think.


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